Rick Story has became a fan favorite in a matter of fifteen minutes. Coming into his bout against former welterweight title contender Thiago Alves, many felt that Story was going to be out of his league. However, the game 26-year old pulled out the victory. Now, he’s set to face an even bigger challenge in Nate Marquardt at UFC Live on Versus 4.
Nate Marquardt is making the much anticipated drop from the 185 pound weight class, where he has been near the top of the rankings for a number of years. His original opponent, Anthony Johnson, was forced to pull out of the fight due to an undisclosed injury. That opening gave way for the rising star, Story, to step in onto the main stage.
While a part of the middleweight weight class, Marquardt was one of the bigger names in the division. A seven-time king of Pancrase and former number-one contender to the middleweight title, his resume includes wins over Demian Maia, Rousimar Palhares, Martin Kampmann and Dan Miller. Despite his success in the weight class, he has gone 2-2 through his last four fights and has decided to drop down to welterweight.
With a 6-1 record in the UFC, Rick Story has exploded onto the MMA scene. Before his upset victory over Alves, he also defeated the likes of Johny Hendricks, Dustin Hazelett and Brian Foster. The powerful wrestler from Washington has been able to both grind out victories and finish opponents; six of his 13 victories have come by stoppage.
This is going to be a huge test for both fighters, and very interesting for the UFC welterweight division, which is running low on title contenders. It has been known for a while that Marquardt has a weakness against solid wrestlers, as Chael Sonnen proved, even training Yushin Okami to use the same style. Story has the ability to take Marquardt down and grind out another victory like he did against Alves. On top of this, it will be very interesting to see how well Marquardt takes to the weight cut. If he struggles coming into the bout, that could cause a serious depletion of his energy reserves in the bout.
On the other hand, Marquardt is a very well rounded fighter whose flashes of brilliance have left people shocked in amazement. He’s going to have to go back to those moments to find a way to pull out a victory over the very tough Story. If he presses the action the way he has in previous matchups, and avoids a few takedowns from Story, he should be able to pull out a decision victory.
While you never want to see a fighter get injured before a fight, Johnson’s injury has set up a bout that could position another name to be thrown into “the mix” of title contention.
